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Do we have religious members in this website?

If yes, I wonder if they can answer this question; The religion followers state that god is great and omnipotent and he/she can do whatever he/she tend to do, my question is, can god create a rock so heavy that he/she can not lift it?

NR92 6 July 8
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The question only fits certain gods. There are thousands or more to choose from.

For everyone: what was here before the big bang or god or whatever (turtle hauling the world)? I don't know, and, quite honestly, I don't have the skill set to find out. If a physicist has an explanation I've not heard, tack it on. Oh, I don't believe it to have been a god. Infinity is a tremendous concept mathematically.

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Minor point, but one can be religious without believing in an invisible superfriend. 🙂

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This is from a site called Crossexamined.org, and even though it's a Christian apologist site, this is the best way of answering that I have come across. (Please note that this debate has been around since the Middle Ages...)

(Any misspellings in the original, for which I make no apologies. I didn't do it.)

"This question reminds me of when the religious leaders tried to trap Jesus in a no-win situation by asking “Should we pay taxes to the Romans?” If Jesus said yes, then that would mean that He was siding with Rome, the people hated Rome and wanted their Messiah when he came to overthrow the Romans and destroy them. Answering yes would turn the Jewish people against Him. They might even stone him or something! On the other hand, if Jesus said no then he’d get in trouble with the Romans. It’d be treason. No matter which answer Jesus gave, it seemed, He would get Himself in trouble. We all know what happened next and how Jesus brilliantly wiggled out their trap. (Mark 12:13-17, Luke 20:21-25)

The Christian Apologist seems to be in the same position. “Can God Create A Rock So big he cannot lift it?” If we say yes, then we concede that there is something God can’t do because God would then create a rock which He couldn’t lift. The thing God couldn’t do would be to lift the rock. On the other hand, if we say no, then we also concede that there’s something God cannot do. Namely, create a rock which He can’t lift. Either way, our answer will affirm that God is not omnipotent, or so it seems.

I think this attempt to stump the theist and get him to admit that God is finite is a pretty bad one. For it misunderstands the definition of omnipotence. When we Christians say “God can do anything” we don’t mean literally everything. When we say that God can do the impossible, we don’t mean he can do the logically impossible. By impossible, we mean things like creating things out of nothing, keeping people in a fire from burning, having a guy walk on water, or make a 90 year old woman get pregnant and give birth to a healthy son, and things like that. We don’t mean God can do absolutely everything. We mean only what is logically possible (that is to say, things that are not contradictory concepts).

There are some things God cannot do simply because He is omnipotent. If God is infinitely powerful than it’s impossible to create a rock so large He cannot lift it. For if there was anything He couldn’t lift, that would prove Him a being of finite strength. But a being of infinite power could create a rock of infinite size and infinite weight and still be able to move it. It is because God is infinitely powerful (i.e omnipotent) that He cannot create a rock too hard for Him to move.

This little riddle is akin to asking “Can God’s infinite power overwhelm His infinite power?” Or it’s like asking “Can God beat Himself in a fist fight” or “Can God think up a mathematical equation too difficult for Him to solve”. It’s sheer nonsense. C.S Lewis once said “Nonsense is still nonsense even when we speak it about God.” You’re basically asking if a Being of unlimited power can produce something to limit Him. But His unlimited power, by definition, rules out that possibility. An unlimited being cannot create limits for Himself.

The definition of omnipotence does not mean being able to do the logically impossible (to do something logically contradictory). God cannot create square circles, married bachelors, one ended sticks etc. God can do anything that’s logically possible, that is; not logically contradictory. God can create out of nothing, God can make ax heads float in water, He can make animals speak in a human tongue, He can cause a virgin to be pregnant, but He can’t make something exist and not exist at the same time, He can’t cause an animal to speak in a human tongue and be silent at the same time, and He can’t make a woman both pregnant and not pregnant at the same time. Nowhere in The Bible does it say that God can do the logically impossible. That is not the definition of Omnipotence."

It then goes off into discussing whether God can do evil, and answering "No" because of God's inherent goodness, which, if you read the OT, I think is up for grabs... but that's another story. This is about logic, not value judgments.

Yes, basically the question is a rhetorical question.

0

Atlas lifts the entire world on his back as the silly story goes.

One heckuva rock.

actually Zeus made Atlas hold up the sky and not the Earth.

@davers Funny how people always get that wrong include the idiots who made those statues.

0

Ummmm, are you making an attempt at being funny? Because, really, not.

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The simple answer is :- This question is frequently asked by skeptics of God, the Bible, Christianity, etc. If God can create a rock that He cannot lift, then God is not omnipotent. If God cannot create a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it, then God is not omnipotent. According to this argument, omnipotence is self-contradictory. Therefore, God cannot be omnipotent. So, the question, could God create a rock so heavy He could not lift it? The quick answer is "No." But the explanation is far more important to understand than the answer... But Pedrohbds gives a much fuller answer.

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I think you would be better posing this question on a different website....Agnostics.com is one in which the majority....if not all of us, don’t believe there is a god, therefore not really anyone here to address this question to.

1

I think the idea of brahman is easier to comprehend. It ties everything back more to science and math than mysticism. The fabric of space is consciousness and it is within us all and all things. Literally. "God" is just a personification of the universe in total. The Lord or Isa (Isha) of the vedas is that space and consciousness with all the rules that makes matter act and interact. We are Isa. We are brahman. We don't create in some mystical manner. We are the consciousness that spurs probabilities to alter. The rules create the rocks.

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Interesting question; on the lines of - Strong as the Hulk is, he cannot lift Thor's hammer but what if he lifted Thor whilst Thor was holding the hammer?
In some respects, god did set his own limits in the form of free will. Adam made his own choice and other than showing him the way or smiting him. God could not prevent it.

In that case, Thor is the one lifting the hammer, Hulk is only lifting Thor. The rule about anyone else lifting the hammer is logically negated once Thor lifts the hammer.

As far as the free will problem, in mythology, JHVH set up a no-win situation. Man has free will, but will be punished disproportionately for exercising it; not only will the ones exercising their free will by taking the fruit be punished, but every generation after them (who had no choice about exercising their free will in that case) will be punished. All of humanity is expelled from the garden, not just Adam and Eve, since there is no return.
In a similar vein, during the Noah flood, it can't be conceived that all of mankind except Noah's extended family were deserving of death... and yet they were drowned. Babies, children, the elderly, and surely there were relatively inoffensive people who didn't entertain a particularly bad thought or deed in their lives; yet they are wiped out without distinction.

It's an illustration of a tyrant as God.

@Paul4747 I used Thor and Hulk because they are fictional/mythical characters and not real. Therefore logic has no bearing here.
As for Eden, mankind constantly makes choices that will affect future generations. Go visit the zoo and see a great Orc or Dodo.
God is a shit, this we all know but as he is about a real as Thor, who cares? Incidentally, he/she/it is also inconsistent. David was only punished by the withdrawal of gods approval.

3
  1. Not all religious are Christians
  2. This paradox has already been addressed by many Christian thinkers and philosophers and it is really a bad argument against YHWH (common, we have better ones).

It all collapses in the problem a limitation, can an omnipotent entity limits itself? Does it make this entity less omnipotent?
The answer to this is simple, yes, YHWH can limit himself as part of his powers, and the same goes with free-will, he limit himself in control of humans thus giving free will.
And this limitation can be removed anytime he can, so yes he can make a stone that he can't lift because he wants to, and at any time he can remove this limitation.

Of course the explanation is a lot more complex and closes the many holes that my brief description gives...

It is naive to think that a religion that has more than 3000 years (Christianity is just a Jewish heresy) has flaws so easy to explore.

AND this does not mean I believe in this bullshit, just means that the bullshit is a lot more complex and elaborated than you think, and if you discuss with someone that really have knowledge about it you would be steam rolled.

So you are saying that it is like, I can lift... wait a minute now I can't lift ? lol

@NR92 Then we need to go to the nature of YHWH itself.
In all literature his power is by what he speaks (and by that as Jesus is the verb we could say that the father is the pilot, the one who decides, the son is the engine/source of the power, the one who makes things happen)
So yes, if he says this stone I can't lift, so the reality will adapt and he would not be able to lift that stone no matter how effort he puts on it.
And if he says, now I can, then yes, now he can.

As I say there are huge texts about it on the roman, orthodox and other forms of Christianity, this is really just a very simplified summary.

That is why YHWH does not lie, not because he is good, but because whatever he says becomes reality by definition thus he is omnipotent as he has the freedom to say (thus make it be that way) anything.

Mythologies are nice, they have a lot of symbolism, and a lot of human culture in it, just because there are too many people believing that the mythology is real does not make it less interesting.

And this is one of the differences of YHWH from most of the divinities, he is a creator, he can alter reality, most of other gods can only alter, or mold realities that already exists, they need a base to change and do something. YHWH can make something come into existence just by saying it.

AND I NEED TO REPEAT i say this in a literary way, not because I believe in it, for me discussing it is like discussing marvel super heroes.

jew is not an adjective. jew heresy is meaningless. you mean jewish heresy. why does this matter? because the ONLY people i have ever heard using jew as an adjective are people who hate jews. if this is not you,.you have picked up a usage that sends a message you may not wish to send. as for your premise, i have no argument with that except that it's not really different for yhwh (which, by the way, doesn't cover the entire range of gods in the judeo-christian-muslim world, because it's not the name of the jewish god, who actually not only has no name but is noncorporeal and genderless; those who wish to refer to that god generally say hashem). most gods are creators of some sort, or serve under a creator god.

g

@genessa

  1. Corrected, english is not my native language, so... I'm sorry.

  2. YHWH is the way it is written in the old texts, the only identification of the god as far as I know, then we use Jeova, Jawe, and other denominations, but they are only this 4 letters added vowels as the vowels were not in the original texts.

  3. Sorry for the gender, in general when I am writing seriously I use it for God, but I was already in the middle of the text full of hes and I was too lazy to change.

But go for other mythologies The Nordic mythology the world is made by the corpse of a gigant
on greed is the Gaia itself, that is a primordial god.
In most of mythologies the world is a primordial god that has always been there and the other things are sculpted over this god or born out of this god.
There is no creation as in YHWH cults.

Or probably I am missing something/have a gap of knowledge here =)

@Pedrohbds "In most of mythologies the world is a primordial god that has always been there and the other things are sculpted over this god or born out of this god." in what way is the judeo-christian-muslim god different from that? ask a christian who created god and there is no answer!

g

@genessa the christian god do not need the body of a primordial being (ice giant) or its own body (Gaia) to use as basis of a world, it don't need the sky to fuck the earth to create animals, life etc. It only makes magic and they appear.

The primordial chaos for greeks needed to break itself in the other primordial gods to start the creation.
Ymir the first gigant need to impregnate itself to create other entities, do you understand? It is the difference between having a baby and creating a new human from nothing.

Actually a Greek god is only a king of something with magical powers, it does not have absolute control as the christian god, Zeus can't create, not even Gaia, Uranus or Oceanus could, they just have kids, or use part of their body to give origin.

In Tolkien mythology would be the sub-creative power, the only creator is Eru, the other gods can only alter, domain or manipulate what is already created. The same with the christian god, he has the creative power, he can bring things from nothing,

@Pedrohbds okay, to you this is an important distinction. to me it's irrelevant. not a single one of them actually exists, so for me it's all about who's the most interesting. i like prometheus, who wasn't even a god. as for the omnipotence in the original question, i have no ideas; i didn't answer it because it is meaningless to me.

g

@genessa Not important, just a distinction, for the symbolism of the religion is important because the god becomes the cause and the end of everything. All exists due to him. We are just SIMS in the computer he built, even the free will is yhwh limiting itself from controlling his universe.
And it is from this that the omnipotece is derived.

Prometheus is a Titan so yes he is a god too, just a different generation and i LOVE Aeschylus play about him, every atheist should read it XD

1

Not all religions are theistic.

0

I have heard some Christian scholars (e.g. Alvin Plantinga) acknowledge that God has logical limitations and would therefore not be omnipotent in that sense.

palex Level 6 July 8, 2019
0

Thanks, edited

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